Favorite Decks in Collective
This page will be filled with decklists of all the notable decks that I saved. Most of them are netdecks, and a few of them are slightly original.
Pearlmaw Good Stuff - https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=4e9135e9
The most basic Pearlmaw deck. Control the board with cheap removals and Plasma Dragon, and play some random top ends to overwhelm the opponent. It was a good deck but in the span of two months, people discovered decks that are much stronger. It is still a respectable deck and I liked that I am the only one who plays Medona Tarrae, who goes out of control if the opponent is not ahead in tempo.
Every Pearlmaw deck has a pattern: Random cheap removal cards with some top ends that can be cast early to play out stronger cards faster than the opponent.
Pearlmaw Great Performance - https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=4c20acc0
https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=d14e0910
The Great Performance is an interesting card: Most people on Discord thought of this card as a “win more” archetype card. The reward token just randomly has 22 attacks, 15 health. Why? Turns out that it is still a cool reward that helps with stalling games + ramping bombs and is convenient enough to be combo’d with Mr. Extinction.
The first version makes use of The Summoning as a Ramp tool. Its restriction of “drawing your cheapest card” means that I had to cut Mr. Extinction, since it will be cheaper than Sim Ta, Ancient Claw, and First Mold, which I need much more like a win condition, and also allows you to get Sim Ta out on turn 4 safely, very very huge. I want to thank Sevas for playing The Summoning with Marie against me.
The second version has Mr.Extinction. Absolute Grandeur + Mr. Extinction = 22 damage, some chip damage here and there would finish off the game conveniently and it is a combo that can be pulled off by turn 8 (too slow for Collective standard I know)
What makes these two decks stand out compared to the rest of PM control is that First Mold creates 3 copies of the first ally that dies. To create the best possible synergy, I was restricted to not playing any cheap units that had the capability of controlling the board. It is a real and interesting restriction (running 5 mana units is also good value I believe)
Ashgerdy Aggro - https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=118135aa
The classic aggressive list. Since Ashgery gets EXP from damaging opponents 3 times, Ashgerdy has to be extremely wide and aggressive.
Chip in some damage with 1 drop, get EXP and “unblockable” knight ramp tokens early. Usually, the damages from units alone aren’t enough but Yaela / Sands of Mir’aj does a really insane amount of damage if unanswered.
I suppose the pattern of play is that the opponent is always on the “must remove threats” mode and once they remove some, you drop the real threats.
The “core set” also included Attune, a real game-changer for Mind Affinity. Every deck needs to run a copy to get ahead in tempo compared to the other affinities. Ash aggro was a fading archetype but the ability to Ramp really made Mind become a powerhouse.
Fortuno “uh” - https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=dcb3dbbf
This is a decklist that is about making use of Ushi-Oni Soulburner + First Aid. As long as I have 3 Soulburner alive, I can instantly OTK my opponent with First Aid since the opponent will lose all the HP they gain. It is a meme deck with lots of tutors all looking for Soulburner and any normal deck with appropriate removal will win this list handily. But I never laughed as hard from winning as playing this list.
How to build decks for Bird Doctors?
I typed Fish into the search bar: https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=4ddae2ad
I typed Angel into the search bar: https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=a29e1b20
I typed Lizabo into the search bar: https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=e26886f9
I typed Pirate into the search bar: https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=6e234cd7
Maybe there should be slightly more of a conversation but bird doctors tend to force a very generic deck-building strategy where every single tribe has to gather as many 1-2 drops as possible for the tribe to be playable. The abilities of bird doctors force players to design archetypes to fit into the vision of getting 2 creatures in a tribe as early as possible to get EXP.
It is easy to build decks. There are perhaps a few intricacies here and there, such as monsterland’s choice of One-Winged Gorilla that really impressed me, or that I add a few tech cards of Silence + Attune while Wujek likes Cornelius slammed into every mind deck. There can be slight differences and personal tastes here and there but mostly the same.
Roughin Ruffian lol.
The curve of these decks is always ⅔ of the deck are just 1 or 2 drops. Go down slightly in 3 mana slots and then a few curve toppers here and there.
With the way Bird Doctors are, players can only put units with a single tribe in their decks. To get around the Bird Doctor restriction, most players designed cards with multi-tribes which signals: “Hey! You can put this in various tribal decks”. Cards that encourage multi-tribe deck building are what I like to see in Collective currently.
Heldim Pain - https://collectivedeck.codes/?list=28835ac0
Cornmeal decided to design 1 card: Crimson Crook. Now all of a sudden Pain is back as an archetype. It desperately needed another card that can constantly trigger Pain and I really like how it deals damage to the opponent as well (take notes Rage because most of you just do damage to yourself without doing anything against the opponent)
There is a fun combo of Sniper + Crimson Crook + Maximilian Deals… I think it is competitively viable and can break the game, Maximilian Deals should replace Lierec easily.
I think my current iteration where I added a few cheaper cards here and there (one drop theory), and I think this list of Pain is my best version. With the new 5 mana deal 5 lifebond, perhaps that can replace Lierec for direct burn?
Building Decks in Drafts/Sealed
Here are some of the conclusions I came to.
One mana unit rules in everything: It is insane how good they are. I would run a 1 mana 3/3 deal 5 to other allies (effectively 5 dmg self burn T1) in Heldim just so that I get a turn 1 card. Run as many of them as possible in your affinity (unless you are playing Pearlmaw)
Bombs and Evasions: Some cards are absurdly overpowered in these cubes and decks should be built to center around them. If there are overpowered high-cost cards, you are building a Pearlmaw deck, if they don’t exist then it would be a Heldim deck since the free flier as an Evasion is just too much to handle most of the time.
For example, Unryeing Bread, Arrow Catcher, and Redeemed Demon are all strong bombs that cost a lot of mana, playing them in Pearlmaw helps with getting them out early and dominating the game. Collective Deck
Cube General Tier List: Well, what cards are in the cube matters a lot as a factor. But generally, S - Heldim, A - Pearlmaw, Dhat, B - Fortuno, Kyung Mi (if not always banned) C - Ashgerdy, Vriktik, Buluc, Marie.
Heldim shines when the set lacks board wipes and generally has no strong bombs. In a world of basic good stuff, the free flier can win the game on its own.
Draft/Sealed environment tends to be slow enough for Dhat to reach level 4, which is a reward token that helps with closing out games. Pearlmaw can ramp into bombs and in the right format she is tier A, but even then Pearlmaw can feel ineffective against Heldim’s pressure.
Kyung Mi is hard to evaluate because she is often banned based on principle since she generates cards from outside of the cube but competitive power-wise, I don’t believe Kyung Mi is that great compared to any of the top 3. She can play good stuff from a lot of colors and build board advantage but doesn’t have the power to “end games” the way other heroes do.
For Ashgerdy, it is often near impossible to build decks that are able to get 3 procs in a non-standard environment. The same for Vriktik, card creators have a tendency to love creating characters over spells. There are often enough actions (spell) in Standard but not enough in Draft/Sealed. Buluc is too weak. Marie is a specialist hero that demands even more “specific” designs for her to work. Marie walks the line between “completely unviable” and “incredibly broken” but haven’t had a chance to witness the second part yet.
The Bird Doctors are not tiered but if there are sets dedicated for bringing them into a draft/sealed format, then I would think that Lazaro > Baldwin > Hawkins but they all would probably be solid B+ heroes.
Mana Curve: There is a slight dissonance between the ideal mana curve and the curve that we actually want for the decks. In Standard decks, most of them contain 10-15 one mana cards. Creators tend to be more drawn to designing cards that cost 2-3 mana, which is still early game cards (generally speaking, plenty of outliers), but the proportion of one-mana cards designed is less than the proportion of one-mana cards I want in a deck, which further increases the value of one-mana cards since they can be so scarce and rare.
An outlier is the commander set that Monsterland put up. Any card chosen as Commander can be in your starting hand and if it dies, it goes back to your hand at cost +2. What really mattered in this format is that you can simply fetch any 1 mana card. The need for “curving out” goes out the window as winning decks were building decks with 1 single 1 mana card as a commander + everything else is 2-3 costs.
Generally, most decks are ~30 cards are 1-3 mana costs, ideally 12, 10, 9 for 1,2,3 mana cost cards that are your affinity. Then fill the rest with good stuff that helps with controlling the board and winning the game. For every other hero generally only very few cards with 7+ costs and most win cons are 4-6 mana, for Pearlmaw she is free to fill the top end curve with up to twelve 7-9+ cost cards.
05-15-22: Collective Died (?)
I started writing about the reflection of Collective so that I could move on someday without regrets. But hey. The server has been down for 2 days and the original developer has been ignoring the messages from the council members. Not sure if the game will be alive again but let me just shout out to everyone in the community.
Shout out to the “Strangerside” crews whose show “Submit For Your Approval” has been great to watch.
Shout out to Cornmeal and Spikeberd for designing cards, half of the cards in the game are made by these two people I feel.
Shout out to Monsterland, Cornmeal, and Sevas, the three active players in the Multi-Player queue that keep the game alive.
Shout out to Alt Collective for the fun weekend tourneys. It was fun playing with everyone.
Shout out to every active member in this community, thank you for creating interesting discussions and random bizarre dramas that make my day better.
Moving On
Moving on, I always wanted to illustrate and design card games myself and I would like to give that shot again. I have been quite addicted and spent 300+ hours on this game, which is pretty much most of my free time for the past months. It does feel like an impossible wall to climb, no matter how much I try learning the game I can never understand things fully, only way to be truly alive is to live it I suppose. I would love to get back into writing about other games and learning how to draw for the next few months. In spite of the current work circumstances, I would like to try to be alive so that games can die.